One of the biggest reasons for many people to switch to a UNIX desktop, away from Windows, is security. It is fairly common knowledge that UNIX-like systems are more secure than Windows. Whether this is true or not will not be up for debate in this short editorial; I will simply assume UNIX-like systems are more secure, for the sake of argument. However, how much is that increased security really worth for an average home user, when you break it down? According to me, fairly little. Here's why.

you're confusing two different concepts. I think we should start distinguishing between the concept of system security and the concept of file safety. I'm not denying there's a dependency between both concepts, but they're not automatically always directly related to each other.

Therein lies your confusion. When people propagate system security, they advise to switch from Windows to other systems . When people propagate file safety, they advise to do backups.

The first point really is worth debating - but you fail to do so because you mix two different things.